Giants summer questionnaire series: Tight end Travis Beckum

Chris Faytok/The Star-LedgerTravis Beckum is envisioning the ball in his hands much more this coming season.

Travis Beckum enters his sophomore season with a simple aim: be on the field. After a rookie season during which he caught just eight passes for 55 yards, the tight end hopes to add a dimension of versatility to the Giants offense with his speed and pass-catching ability, which is what both the Giants and Beckum anticipated last season. Beckum shares his thoughts on his personal mission to leave an imprint on the Giants offense in this installment of The Star-Ledger's summer questionnaire series.

Anything you’re carrying with you from last year as motivation this year?

My overall play. Obviously, I expected to play more last year and that didn’t happen. I played a small amount, but I expect to contribute more, whether it be offensively or special teams. That’s something I can look at as motivation to know that everything that I encountered last year was fresh to me and it’s a new year. With repetition, it’s definitely coming along.

What specific memories from last season will serve as motivation?

All the plays in general where I’m on the sideline and I’m like, ‘I wish that was me out there. I wish I had the chance to do that.’ I guess all of that I can use as motivation.

Individual goals this year?

Obviously, I want to contribute more. I can’t say my catches because that’s not … I expect to definitely catch a bunch of balls this year and help the offense move the ball, as well as special teams.

Do you have a number of catches in mind?

I don’t have a number in my head. As far as special teams, just be one of those guys that other teams look at when they watch film and say, ‘Whoa, we have to watch out for this guy.’

Is it more of a quality-over-quantity thing when it comes to catches?

I’d love to move the chains, but I’ll take what I can get. Maybe it is me running the flat on third-and-2 and pick up three to move the chains. I guess you could say both. I’d love to catch as many balls as I can, but at the same time put the offense in a better position to score.

The last one is a reader submission: Do you see this offense evolving to one that’s more of a pass to set up the run scheme than vice versa?

I guess that goes along with game planning. Technically, we’re known as a running offense. But you have to realize you can never expect anything in the NFL. Some things are so random sometimes. We’d like to run the football. But last year, people really doubted our receiving corps. From my perspective, I thought we did a great job. Just being balanced is better than being one-dimensional.